Angela Brown

Department: Land Use – Economic Development
Email: [email protected]

Biography:

Angela Brown joined MAPC in 2022. She works in the Land Use Department as Chief of Economic Development, managing the Economic Development Division. Ms. Brown’s efforts focus on crafting downtown and commercial/industrial area visions and plans, leading economic development initiatives, and promoting worker upskilling and workforce development. She develops actionable strategies to realize the MetroCommon 2050 regional plan and the equity priorities set forth in it, and works with municipalities to access American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and other support to help small businesses, non-profit organizations, and job seekers achieve economic recovery and resilience.

Brown comes to MAPC having served in the public and nonprofit sectors, including as Vice President for the New York City Economic Development Corporation. While with the City of New York, she spearheaded industrial site redevelopment, back-office development in the outer boroughs, and development of neighborhood and downtown commercial districts. Following that, she led an initiative to adapt and apply the National Main Streets Center’s model–proven in small and medium-sized communities–to low-income, racially diverse, neighborhoods in five major cities for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC.)

In Greater Boston, Angela worked in local and national philanthropy. She served as The Hyams Foundation’s Director of Programs, where she led strategies in workforce development, family homelessness, public policy and racial equity. She has managed multi-city projects in family economic self sufficiency and children’s savings accounts for CFLeads, a national network of community foundations. She has undertaken affordable housing production and affordable housing policy initiatives in Massachusetts and worked with MAPC on the HUD Sustainable Communities grant awarded to metropolitan Boston in 2010.

Ms. Brown operates from the strong belief that low-income people, people of color, and other stakeholders can and must play crucial roles in guiding the future of their communities. She sat on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Racial Wealth Gap Working Group, Mayor Martin Walsh’s Affordable Housing Task Force, and the Skillworks’ funders committee’s effort that created worker pathways in the hospitality, health care, building maintenance, and automotive servicing sectors.

Ms. Brown obtained her B.A. from University of Massachusetts at Amherst and holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Areas of Expertise: Commercial and industrial redevelopment and corridor strategies, workforce development, household asset building as a vehicle for mobility from poverty, resident engagement, public policy, cross-sector collaboration, and racial equity